Tasting authentic, local dishes offers a unique window into the culture of a place. Of course, this type of culinary-driven travel is not only fun, but also delicious. Across the South, culinary tours offer groups the opportunity to experience how carefully chosen ingredients can create dishes iconic to a locale — or even take dining in exciting new directions.
New Orleans
New Orleans’ food scene is famously a tapestry of influences, with bold flavors from French, Spanish, West African and Caribbean cultures mixing and mingling into the Creole and Cajun expressions that are well known today.
Groups can explore the city’s robust culinary traditions through hands-on cooking classes offered by several local establishments, including the New Orleans School of Cooking, Mardi Gras School of Cooking and Deelightful Roux School of Cooking, which is led by Chef Dee Lavigne.
Attendees at Deelightful Roux’s classes come away with fun, firsthand experience creating some of New Orleans’ most famous dishes, from jambalaya, gumbo and grits to NOLA-style Bananas Foster. Lavigne’s classes are held in the cooking kitchen of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, so groups can enhance their hands-on lessons by exploring the museum’s many exhibits on Southern food and culinary heritage while on-site.
While diving into the ingredients and techniques — think chopping, stirring and flambéing — that form the backbone of perennial New Orleans favorites, Lavinge also shares insights into what makes Louisiana cuisine so unique, including the ways that Creole and Cajun cooking are similar and how they’re different.
“We always hear back from guests that they have the best time during the hands-on cooking classes,” said MaryBeth Romig, assistant vice president of public relations for New Orleans & Company. “These experiences are so popular, and they fill up fast.”
Charleston, South Carolina
An essential dish rooted in the Gullah culture of South Carolina’s Lowcountry, the traditional shrimp boil is, when done correctly, a shared communal experience.
“It’s a community meal, a one-pot meal meant for everyone to share,” said Guilds Hollowell, founder of Charleston Culinary Tours and a sixth-generation native of Charleston.
Those who take Charleston Culinary Tours’ 2-hour Lowcountry Boil Experience can try their hand at creating the iconic dish themselves, including prepping its key ingredients — fresh shrimp, andouille sausage, corn and red potatoes, plus a hearty dose of Old Bay seasoning — before steaming them together in a pot. Once ready, the feast is spread out on newspaper, and everyone is invited to enjoy the tried-and-true flavors shared by Charleston-area friends and neighbors for generations.
Charleston Culinary Tours offers other popular food tours of the city as well, including its in-demand Farm-to-Table Experience. During that 3-hour tour, led by one of Charleston’s best chefs, attendees pick out the meal’s ingredients from beloved neighborhood market The Veggie Bin.
“The chef cooks whatever you pick out, and he’s only got about an hour to do it,” Hollowell said. “But everything’s fresh, and the ingredients are all local.”
Nashville, Tennessee
Although Music City USA is best known for its live music scene and rich country music heritage, Nashville, Tennessee’s talented chefs are serving up delicious dishes deserving of equal acclaim.
A Little Local Flavor offers walking food tours of the city, where groups can explore the sights, sounds and flavors that are elevating Nashville’s dining scene. The company’s popular 3.5-hour Downtown Nashville Food Tour includes food tastings at five locally owned restaurants, including stops like Acme Feed & Seed on Broadway and Southern Steak & Oyster on Third Avenue. Tour guests typically enjoy full samples of classics like shrimp and grits, brisket, Nashville hot chicken, or a quarter-rack of barbecue ribs.
“All of our tours feature locally owned restaurants, and all of the food at the restaurants is made from scratch,” said Christine Wheatley, A Little Local Flavor’s founder.
Tours also incorporate a visit to one of Nashville’s top live music venues, and attendees can enjoy one local beer and up to two cocktails as part of their experience.
“We try to go to some great, family-owned spots, and we also talk a lot about the history of downtown landmarks along the way,” Wheatley said.
Asheville, North Carolina
No Taste Like Home’s Forage & Feast in Asheville tour offers a truly unique culinary experience: the chance to wander through the North Carolina woods with an expert guide while on the hunt for edible natural ingredients.
“We take people out and give them baskets and all the tools they need,” said Alan Muskat, an expert forager and No Taste Like Home’s founder.
With guide support, attendees can expect to identify and collect a mix of ingredients, including edible mushrooms, plants, seeds, roots, bark, flowers and fruits. Each tour’s harvest depends heavily on the season and recent weather conditions, though Asheville’s famously bio-diverse ecology means groups always have a rich array of plants and fungi to hunt for.
Generally, tours are small — including roughly 10 to 12 people — so guides can give each participant ample support in their search. Because tours usually cover only about a half mile on flat ground, they are accessible for nearly all ages and mobility levels.
The 3-hour experience includes a short cooking demo, when Muskat or another skilled guide illustrates how the harvested ingredients can be properly prepared for meals. Attendees can also opt to take their excess ingredients to a local partner restaurant for inclusion in a dish that they can enjoy later that day.
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City is famous for its namesake barbecue, which is distinguishable by its thick, tomato- and molasses-based sauce.
Groups can meet local pitmasters who have helped shape the city’s trademark barbecue style on one of Tour Kansas City’s popular KC BBQ Tours. The 3- to 4-hour experience includes tastings at three local barbecue destinations on the Missouri side of the city, with stops chosen among 10 local favorites like Arthur Bryant’s, Big T’s, LC’s, Gates and more.
“These are the restaurants that were kind of at the pinnacle in creating the barbecue culture here,” said Arlin Pacheco, owner of Tour Kanas City. “The pitmasters love to come out and talk shop with us.”
Groups can work with Pacheco’s team to customize their tour experience, and all tours include a city sightseeing element — filled with lots of fascinating local lore — between stops.
“Our tours are about more than just exploring barbecue,” Pacheco said. “It’s about bringing Kansas City to life through all the sights, sounds, tastes and smells that you get to experience through a tour like this.””
Miami
Perhaps no area of the city showcases Miami’s rich flavor traditions more than the Little Havana neighborhood, where groups can experience authentic Cuban cuisine.
Miami Culinary Tours’ Little Havana Food and Cultural Tour takes visitors to the heart of the city’s celebrated Cuban community to sip real Cuban coffee, watch experienced torcedores roll their famous cigars and taste authentic Cuban specialties, like beef empanadas, Cuban sandwiches, pastelito de guayaba (sweet guava pastries) and fresh-pressed guarapo, the juice of raw sugarcane. Optional rum mojitos are also available.
The 2.5-hour tour weaves through Little Havana’s famed Domino Park and Rooster Alley and down the corridors along Calle Ocho, where vibrant murals wash the buildings in color, artistic rooster statues dot the streets, and live salsa music pours from the likes of the 1930s-era Ball & Chain bar and lounge.
“Our tours highlight the full experience of Cuban culture — the music, the art, the food — in Little Havana,” said Vanessa Jetter, operations and logistics manager for Miami Culinary Tours. “Most of our tour guides are Cuban or have a Cuban background, and their stories and perspectives really make the tour a special experience.”
